The confusion around last week’s ugly Lachie Schultz concussion incident has grown with the AFL declaring the umpires “gave them the wrong information” when claiming they didn’t see the Magpies forward’s injury.
Seven aired footage of the collision between Schultz and Fremantle’s Jordan Clark including the umpire audio, in which you could hear an umpire say “got an injured player in the middle. I’m watching. We are OK. We are OK.”
Later an umpire is heard telling a player: “We can only stop the play if the ball is coming near or if they instruct us to.”
FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every match of every round in the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer.
This is in direct contrast to the league’s statement from Friday, which claimed “the umpires did not see the injured player at the time so play continued. Upon review, if the umpires were aware play would have been stopped.”
The umpires were criticised at the time for not stopping the game, with Collingwood captain Darcy Moore telling Fox Footy play continuing “didn’t feel right”.
It is unclear whether the umpires did indeed see Schultz, but just didn’t think he was seriously injured enough to warrant a stoppage and miscommunicated based on that, or if they deliberately told the AFL the wrong thing.
“(AFL executive GM of football) Laura Kane is extremely disappointed by the umpires,” Jon Ralph said on Fox Footy’s Midweek Tackle.
“My question to the AFL tonight – is there a chance those umpires could be stood down? They couldn’t provide clarification on that.”
Moore describes ‘rattling’ Schultz scene | 01:54
The umpires involved were spoken to by the league on Tuesday and in a statement to Seven, Kane blamed them for the confusion.
“The statement we released was incorrect, but we were given the wrong information from the umpires,” she said.
“It’s inconsistent with the vision.
“They (the umpires) were going off memory and not the vision and we should always look at the vision.
“All the field umpires from the game have all been coached this afternoon that they should have stopped the game.”
Kane told the show the error “is on me. It’s the footy department that runs umpiring and that sits with me.”
Schultz will miss at least Round 10’s clash with Adelaide as he progresses through the concussion protocols.
Discussion about this post